The present invention relates to a method for filleting the breast piece of slaughtered poultry comprising at least the sternum and the wishbone that is defined by both clavicles, wherein the breast piece is supported and the breast flesh is cut loose from the sternum and the wishbone by a cutting means.
When, according to the known method, the breast flesh is cut loose from the breast piece and from the wishbone, it often appears that bone remainders are present in the breast flesh cut loose. There are many reasons for the presence of such bone remainders.
It is to be noted that the bone remainders mainly originate from the wishbone. The poultry from which the breast piece originates principally are young chickens which are not yet fully grown. As a result, bone fractures may occur during several stages from little chicken until finished end product. Already during capturing chickens fractures may occur in the not yet fully grown wishbone because the chickens wildly flap their wings. Also during stunning, previous to slaughtering, jerky muscle tensions sometimes result in undesired bone fractures. The successive plucking of slaughtered chickens with mechanical plucking fingers is another source of bone fractures. Finally, bone fractures may result from the automatic ready-to-cook machines with which the slaughtered chicken is made ready to cook. Eviscerators also belong to this category of machines.
As a result, isolated fragments of the wishbone may remain in the breast flesh, which, of course, is undesired. According to the state of the art, this leads to the need of a manual handling of the breast flesh and a manual removal of possible bone fragments. If one wants to rule out that such bone fragments are present, a wide cut around the wishbone has to be made. It is a disadvantage of this solution that a relatively large part of the breast flesh is lost.